Sj 
PERSONAL 

RECOLLECTIONS  AND 

IMPRESSIONS 

OF 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


Sy  Francis  Durbin  Blakeslee 


LINCOLN  ROOM 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


MEMORIAL 

the  Class  of  1901 

founded  by 

HARLAN  HOYT  HORNER 

and 

HENRIETTA  CALHOUN  HORNER 


PERSONAL  RECOLLECTIONS 
AND   IMPRESSIONS 

OF 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

*By  Francis  Durbin  Blakeslee,  D.D.,  Litt.  D. 

AN  ADDRESS  DELIVERED  WITH  ABBRE- 
VIATIONS AT  LOS  ANGELES  BEFORE 
THE  RETIRED  METHODIST  PREACHERS' 
ASSOCIATION  OF  SOUTHERN  CALIFOR- 
NIA, AT  THE  MEMORIAL  DAY  SERVICE 
IN  HONOR  OF  THE  VETERANS  OF  THE 
GRAND  ARMY  OF  THE  REPUBLIC  TEN- 
DERED BY  THE  SHAKESPEARE  CLUB 
OF  PASADENA,  AND  ON  MANY 
OTHER   OCCASIONS 


GARDENA,    CALIFORNIA 

SPANISH   AMERICAN   INSTITUTE    PRESS 

19    2   7 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2012  with  funding  from 

University  of  Illinois  Urbana-Champaign 


http://www.archive.org/details/personalrecollecOOblak 


>T  A  RECENT  school  examination  in  England 
the  question  was  asked,  "If  King  John  were 
alive,  what  would  be  his  attitude  on  Home 
Rule?"  One  boy  replied,  "If  King  John  were 
alive  to-day,  he  would  be  too  old  to  be  in- 
terested in  politics." 
Although  I  am  what  the  old  woman  called 
an  "octogeranium,"  I  am  not  too  old  to  be  interested  with  you 
in  one  of  the  greatest  characters  that  ever  appeared  upon  the 
stage  of  human  history — Abraham  Lincoln. 

Someone  has  said,  "That  nation  is  death-stricken  that  ceases 
to  reverence  the  memory  of  her  great  men."  And  so  we  in 
America  are  raising  memorials  to  our  Washingtons,  our  Lincolns, 
our  Grants,  our  Roosevelts,  and  are  commemorating  their  birth- 
days. The  British  are  doing  the  same  for  their  great  heroes. 
There  is  a  good  deal  in  common  between  our  British  cousins 
and  ourselves.  John  Wesley  was  a  Britisher  but  there  are  millions 
in  our  land  to-day  who  also  claim  him  as  theirs.  No  man  could 
possibly  be  more  of  an  American  than  was  Abraham  Lincoln, 
but  to-day  he  belongs  to  the  world. 

There  is  a  greater  demand  for  information  concerning  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  than  concerning  any  other  of  the  world's  immortals. 
It  has  been  figured  that,  were  he  to  return  to  earth  and  live  out 
his  fourteen  years  to  threescore  and  ten, — he  died  at  fifty-six, — 
it  would  take  him  every  available  minute  simply  to  read  what  has 
been  written   about  him. 

In  the  estimation  of  some  of  the  critics,  the  best  biography  of 
Lincoln  and  the  best  dramatic  presentation  of  his  life  were  both 
written  by  Englishmen:  Lord  Charnwood's  "Life  of  Lincoln," 
and  John  Drinkwater's  play,  "Abraham  Lincoln." 

In  the  palmy  days  of  ancient  Greece,  at  one  of  their  Olympic 
Games,  the  multitude  recognizing  their  great  historian, 
Herodotus,  seized  him  and  bore  him  on  their  shoulders  about 
the  great  Arena,  shouting,  "Let  us  honor  the  man  who  has 
written  our  history!"  To-day,  as  an  American,  I  say:  "Let  us 
honor  the  man  who  has  made  our  history!" 

James  Russell  Lowell  once  said,  "It  is  a  benediction  to  have 
lived  in  the  same  country  and  at  the  same  time  with  Abraham 
Lincoln."   I  am  now  speaking  to  none,  probably,  who  are  not 

[5] 


of  the  country  of  Abraham  Lincoln ;  but  there  are  very  few  here 
who  lived  at  the  time  of  Lincoln.  That  was  my  privilege! 

I  hold  in  my  hand  a  letter  written  to  a  member  of  my  family 
by  a  woman  on  the  tenth  day  before  she  was  a  hundred  years  old. 
I  recall  having  heard  her  tell  of  her  interview,  when  a  girl, 
with  George  Washington.  There  is  but  one  link  then  between 
me  and  the  Father  of  his  Country,  who  died  the  last  month  of 
the  year  1799! 

As  I  tell  you  this,  I  am  wondering  if  some  of  you  are  not 
looking  upon  me  very  much  as  the  little  girl  looked  upon  her 
grand-daddy.  He  had  a  long  white  beard;  his  face  was  gnarled 
and  seamed,  and  he  wore  a  crown  of  silver.  The  little  darling, 
sitting  in  his  lap,  looked  up  and  said,  "Grandpa,  were  you  in 
the  ark?"  "Oh,  no,  my  dear;  I  wasn't  in  the  ark!"  "Then  why 
weren't  you  drowned?"  .  .  .  Well,  I  escaped  the  drowning 
anyway,  and  am  happy  to  be  here  with  you  to-day. 

I  have  no  oration  on  Abraham  Lincoln.  I  am  not  competent 
for  that  high  theme.  But,  although  I  am  well  known  in  some 
sections  as  an  ardent  prohibitionist,  I  have  a  confession  to  make: 
I  do  sometimes  indulge — in  what  the  old  woman  called  "rum 
and  essences," — reminiscences, — of  those  far-off  days  of  the 
Civil  War. 

I  was  a  clerk  in  the  Quartermaster  General's  Office  at 
Washington  for  a  year  and  a  half,  including  the  close  of  that 
great  struggle.  In  consequence  I  had  frequent  opportunities  of 
seeing  the  great  President.  Not  often  on  the  street — he  was 
too  busy  to  be  there — but  in  great  assemblies  and  elsewhere. 

It  was  a  custom  in  those  days  to  hold  services  on  Sunday  after- 
noons in  the  House  of  Representatives.  The  most  prominent 
preachers  were  secured.  On  one  occasion,  Bishop  Simpson  of 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, — one  of  the  greatest  orators 
that  this  country  ever  produced, — then  a  guest  at  the  White 
House,  was  the  preacher.  I  remember,  as  if  it  were  yesterday, 
seeing  there  the  President  and  all  his  family.  On  another  occasion 
Murdock,  the  great  elocutionist,  also  a  guest  at  the  White 
House,  gave  a  reading.  Again  Lincoln  was  present. 

I  attended,  in  the  same  place,  a  meeting  held  in  the  interest 
of  the  Christian  Commission.  Secretary  Seward  presided.  General 
Fiske  was  one  of  the  speakers.  Admiral  Farragut  was  there  and 

[6] 


jther  prominent  actors  in  that  great  drama  of  the  Civil  War. 
It  was  impossible  to  proceed  because  of  the  continued  applause, 
until  the  great  President  unlimbered  himself  and  bowed  right 
and  left  to  the  waiting  multitude. 

In  the  summer  the  Marine  Band  gave  free  concerts  on  the 
White  House  grounds  on  pleasant  Saturday  afternoons.  One  day 
I  stood  so  near  the  White  House  that  I  was  within  ten  feet  of 
the  President  as  he  came  out  to  mount  his  horse  to  ride  to  the 
Soldiers'  Home.  I  could  have  stepped  three  paces  and  touched 
him.  He  could  have  no  vacation  in  war  time,  but  he  could  go 
for  the  night  some  four  miles  out  to  the  Soldiers'  Home,  em- 
bowered in  a  grove,  and  get  that  much  of  country  air.  At 
another  time  I  saw  him  riding  in  a  carriage  to  the  Soldiers'  Home 
with  a  squad  of  cavalry  as  his  escort. 

I  called  on  the  President  on  Monday,  January  2,  1865.  My 
diary  reads:  "Accompanied  by  Miss  Fannie  and  Miss  Laura," 
(young  women  at  my  boarding-place,)  "called  upon  the  Pres- 
ident." Then,  with  boyish  irreverence,  I  continue:  "Shook  his 
paw  with  a  gusto."  With  the  increasing  wisdom  of  maturer  years, 
I  now  see  that  I  should  have  done  it  with  my  right  hand! 

I  heard  Lincoln's  last  public  address,  which  he  delivered  from 
a  second-story  window  of  the  White  House,  three  days  before 
his  assassination.  He  had  just  returned  from  Richmond.  The 
cruel  war  was  over.  There  was  intense  rejoicing,  not  exceeded 
on  Armistice  Day  after  the  World  War.  Cabinet  members  and 
other  prominent  officials  were  serenaded  and  made  speeches. 
Flags,  bands  and  bunting  were  much  in  evidence.  The  President 
had  been  asked  for  a  speech  the  previous  evening.  He  replied 
that  he  was  so  busy  that  evening  that  he  could  not  possibly 
give  us  any  time,  but  that  if  we  cared  enough  about  it  to  come 
the  following  evening  he  would  arrange  to  receive  us.  Of  course 
we  cared,  and  I  was  one  of  the  hundreds  that  stood  on  the 
White  House  grounds  and  heard  Abraham  Lincoln's  last  speech. 
It  was  about  twenty  minutes  long  and  related  to  the  problems 
confronting  the  nation  at  that  crisis  of  its  history,  and  may  be 
found  to-day  among  his  published  addresses. 

On  two  different  occasions,  five  years  apart,  I  have  spoken 
at  patriotic  services  in  Patriotic  Hall  in  Los  Angeles.  On  Lincoln's 
birthday  a  year  ago,   the  presiding  officer,  Mr.  M.  T.   Salida, 

[7] 


who  has  been  blind  ever  since  a  Confederate  bullet  went  through 
his  temple,  said,  in  introducing  me:  "Dr.  Blakeslee  is  the  only 
person  who,  after  all  the  intervening  years,  I  know  stood  with  me 
on  the  White  House  grounds  and  heard  Abraham  Lincoln's 
last  public  address."  When  I  arose,  I  said:  "After  all  these  years, 
and  I  have  met  many  who  were  connected  with  those  times, 
Mr.  Salida  is  the  only  person  who  I  know  stood  with  me  on  the 
White  House  grounds  and  heard  Abraham  Lincoln's  last  public 
utterance."  I  have  been  saying  that  in  my  addresses  ever  since. 
I  spoke  at  the  Mission  Inn,  Riverside,  on  Sunday  evening,  the 
thirteenth  of  last  February,  the  second  time  in  successive  years. 
After  the  lecture,  a  Mrs.  Russell  came  to  me  and  said,  "I  want 
you  to  know  that  as  a  little  girl  I  stood  with  you  on  the  White 
House  grounds  and  heard  Abraham  Lincoln's  last  public  utter- 
ance." So  now  there  are  two  that  I  know,  who  stood  there  with 
me  that  evening. 

On  April  3,  1865,  upon  receipt  of  news  of  the  fall  of  Rich- 
mond, I  heard  Stanton,  "Andy"  Johnson,  Seward,  General' 
Butler,  and  Senators  Nye,  Sherman,  Preston  King,  and  M.  C. 
Smith.  The  next  evening  there  was  a  great  mass  meeting  in 
front  of  the  Patent  Office.  Vice-President  Johnson  said  in  his 
speech  referring  to  the  "Rebels,"  "If  I  had  my  way,  I'd  hang 
them  higher  than  Haman!"  We  know  his  subsequent  record  in 
dealing  with  the  "Rebels." 

I  saluted  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lincoln  at  the  Navy  Yard,  the  after- 
noon of  the  very  day  that  he  was  assassinated.  Some  fellow 
clerks  and  I  had  gone  there  to  see  the  monitors,  damaged  in 
the  Fort  Fisher  engagement,  which  had  come  to  the  Navy  Yard 
for  repairs.  They  were  "rare  birds"  to  landsmen.  As  fast  as 
builded,  they  were  rushed  into  service.  All  Washington,  as  it 
were,  turned  out  to  see  the  ironclads  which  marked  such  a 
revolution  in  naval  warfare.  We  went  all  over  three  of  them. 
The  autopsy  on  the  body  of  the  assassin,  Booth,  was  later  held 
in  the  gun-room  of  one  of  these,  the  "Montauk." 

The  President  and  his  wife  drove  up  and  halted  at  the  end 
of  a  platform,  similar  to  a  railway  platform,  upon  which  my 
friends  and  I  were  standing.  We  saluted,  and  the  salute  was 
returned.  Many  years  later,  I  had  an  interview  with  Schuyler 

[8] 


Colfax  in  Providence,  Rhode  Island,  following  his  lecture  on 
Abraham  Lincoln.  Mr.  Colfax  then  told  me  that  he  knew  for  a 
fact  that  I  saw  the  great  man  later  than  did  any  of  his  Cabinet. 
He  said  to  me,  "I  know  where  they  all  were  that  day  and 
evening,  and  not  one  of  them  saw  Mr.  Lincoln  as  late  as  you 
did."  No  credit  to  me;  only  one  of  the  accidents  or  incidents  of 
my  early  manhood.  "But  I  am  ahead  of  you,"  he  continued; 
"I  was  talking  with  him  at  the  White  House  when  he  entered 
the  carriage  to  go  to  the  theatre." 

I  am  surprised  that,  after  all  these  years,  the  disputed  question 
of  where  the  President's  last  drive  was  taken  seems  to  hinge, 
in  the  minds  of  some  historians,  upon  my  testimony.  Mr.  John 
W.  Starr,  Jr.,  of  Millersburg,  Pennsylvania,  is  author  of  two 
books,  "Lincoln's  Last  Day"  and  "New  Light  on  Lincoln's 
Last  Day."  In  his  second  book  he  quotes  my  diary  and  extracts 
from  letters  that  I  had  written  him. 

I  stood  beside  the  casket  in  the  White  House.  My  diary  of 
that  day  reads:  "Thousands  were  unable  to  enter."  There  was  no 
business  at  the  office  that  day.  I  was  foot-free,  and  with  a  boy's 
enthusiasm  I  went  early  and  waited  long — and  finally  got  in, 
and  stood  by  the  casket  and  looked  into  the  cold  face  of  him 
whom  I  had  saluted  in  life  a  few  hours  previously. 

Not  only  that,  but  I  took  part  in  the  funeral  procession.  I 
doubt  if  there  is  now  another  on  earth  who  can  truthfully  say 
that.  I  was  a  youngster.  The  others  were  older.  They  are  probably 
all  gone. 

The  Quartermaster  General's  Office  was  a  bureau  of  the  War 
Department,  and  the  clerks  were  drilled  periodically  during 
office  hours.  In  a  recent  reading  of  my  diary,  I  find  this  entry: 
"We  drill  now  every  day."  We  had  some  humble  part  in  de- 
fending Washington  when  it  was  attacked  by  the  Confederate 
General,  Early,  in  the  summer  of  1864.  When  the  officials  in 
charge  came  to  make  up  the  military  part  of  the  funeral  pageant, 
they  put  our  company  in  line.  My  diary  of  April  19,  1865, 
reads:  "At  8  o'clock  we  all  repaired  to  the  office  where  we  put 
on  our  uniforms  and  equipment,  and  from  that  time  till  half 
past  two  had  to  stand  in  the  sun.  We  then  fell  in  with  the 
funeral  procession,  and  marched  up  around  the  Capitol  and 
back.  We  were  just  as  near  dead  when  we  got  back  as  could  be." 

[9] 


I  could  almost  have  thrown  a  stone  from  the  house  where  I 
was  rooming  to  Ford's  Theatre.  I  overslept  the  night  of  the 
assassination;  and  although  Washington  was  seething  with  an 
excitement  never  before  known  in  its  history,  I  was  utterly 
oblivious  of  it  all.  I  went  late  to  my  breakfast  the  following 
morning  and,  as  I  entered  the  restaurant,  noted  the  unusual  quiet 
which  prevailed.  While  the  waitress  was  filling  my  order, 
the  only  other  man  at  my  table  turned  his  daily  paper — and  I 
then  read  the  black  head-lines  telling  me  of  the  awful  event  of  the 
night  before!  My  father,  living  hundreds  of  miles  away,  and  the 
great  centres  of  the  country  knew  of  the  tragedy  before  I  did. 

I  met  Boston  Corbett  at  a  Methodist  classmeeting  on  the 
second  of  May,  six  days  after  he  had  shot  the  assassin,  Booth, 
in  the  Garrett  barn  in  Virginia.  I  obtained  his  autograph  and 
had  a  short  chat  with  him.  He  told  me  that  the  pistol  with 
which  he  shot  Booth,  and  for  which  he  had  been  offered  over 
$1,000,  had  been  stolen.  He  had  promised  the  loan  of  it  to  a 
great  fair  at  Chicago  in  the  interest  of  the  Sanitary  Commission. 
When  he  went  to  get  it,  it  was  gone. 

I  saw  the  Grand  Review  for  two  days;  attended  for  two  days 
the  trial  of  the  assassins  at  the  Arsenal,  and  obtained  the  auto- 
graph of  every  member  of  the  Military  Commission  constitut- 
ing the  court.  Of  course  I  had  excellent  opportunity  of  seeing 
the  conspirators,  Mrs.  Surratt  among  them.  She  was  one  of  the 
four  who  were  executed. 

On  February  12,  1865,  I  heard  Chief  Justice  Chase  and 
Senator  James  W.  Patterson  from  New  Hampshire.  On  the 
evening  of  February  26,  1 865,  I  was  present  in  the  House  of 
Representatives  when  Chief  Justice  Chase  presided  at  a  meeting 
celebrating  the  third  anniversary  of  the  Freedmen's  Relief  As- 
sociation. Theodore  Tilton  was  one  of  the  speakers  and  greatly 
impressed  me  with  his  eloquence.  I  saw  and  heard  General  Ben 
Butler  more  than  once. 

I  was  President  of  Iowa  Wesleyan  University,  Mt.  Pleasant, 
Iowa,  when  Senator  James  Harlan,  the  first  president  of  that 
institution,  and  later  President  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  that 
elected  me,  died;  and  I  spoke  at  his  funeral  in  the  college 
chapel.  He  was  elected  to  the  United  States  Senate  while  Pres- 
ident of  the  University.  Senator  Harlan  was  father-in-law  to 

[  10  1 


_ 


the  late  Robert  Todd  Lincoln,  the  eldest  son  of  Abraham 
Lincoln.  I  first  met  Robert  at  the  funeral  of  Senator  Harlan. 
Later  Bishop  McCabe  and  I  had  an  interview  with  him  in  his 
office  in  Chicago,  when  he  was  President  of  the  Pullman  Com- 
pany. I  saw  Mrs.  Robert  Todd  Lincoln  more  frequently,  for 
she  spent  a  good  deal  of  time  at  her  father's  home  at  Mt.  Pleasant. 
I  first  met  Senator  Harlan  in  Washington  when  I  was  a  boy, 
and  at  that  time  obtained  his  autograph. 

I  hold  in  my  hand  an  autograph  of  Abraham  Lincoln!  He 
wrote  every  line  of  what  I  read  you:  "For  G.  H.  Blakeslee — A. 
Lincoln — Nov.  2,  1864." 

G.  H.  Blakeslee  was  my  father.  He  was  a  Methodist  pastor 
at  Binghamton,  New  York.  At  the  call  of  the  Christian  Com- 
mission, which  antedated  the  Red  Cross,  he,  with  other  pastors, 
went  to  the  front  to  serve  on  battlefields  and  in  hospitals  and  to 
hold  religious  services  with  the  troops.  Upon  returning  from  the 
front,  he  stayed  a  night  with  me  in  Washington.  At  the  break- 
fast table  he  said:  "We  are  going  to  call  upon  the  President  this 
morning,"  referring  to  a  brother  minister  who  was  stopping 
elsewhere  in  the  city.  At  night  he  showed  me  the  autograph, 
which  I  have  treasured  these  many  years. 

A  few  years  ago,  to  my  utter  surprise,  I  found  in  my  attic 
two  cheap  little  blank-books  which  proved  to  be  my  father's 
diary  of  all  those  days,  from  October  4  to  November  4,  1864. 
I  turned  with  greatest  interest  to  November  2,  and  there  was  the 
following  entry: 

"At  2  p.  m.  accompanied  by  Rev.  E.  W.  Breckinridge  visited 
the  Presidential  Mansion.  Four  young  men  approached  the 
President  who  were  anxious  to  get  his  aid  relative  to  a  matter 
which  I  did  not  understand.  But  Mr.  Lincoln,  who  was  seated 
in  his  chair,  replied  to  them  kindly  but  firmly,  'I  can  do  nothing 
for  you.'  When  they  urged  that  their  papers  should  be  read, 
he  replied,  'I  should  not  remember  it  if  I  did.  The  papers  can  be 
put  in  their  proper  places  and  go  through  their  proper  channels.' 
A  lady  next  appeared  and  presented  a  paper.  He  took  it  and  read 
it  and  replied:  'This  will  not  do.  I  can  do  nothing  for  your 
husband.'  'Why  not?'  said  the  lady.  'Because,'  said  Mr.  Lincoln, 
'he  is  not  loyal.'  'But  he  intends  to  be;  he  wants  to  take  the  oath 

[11] 


of  allegiance.'  'That  is  the  way  with  all  who  get  into  prison,'  re- 
plied the  President.  'I  can  do  nothing  for  you.'  'But  you  would,' 
said  the  lady,  'if  you  knew  my  circumstances.'  'No,  I  would 
not.  I  am  under  no  obligation  to  provide  for  the  wives  of  dis- 
loyal husbands.  Hasn't  your  husband  the  consumption?'  'No,' 
replied  the  lady.  'Well,'  said  the  President,  'it  is  the  only 
case.  Nearly  all  have  the  consumption.' 

"Another  lady  presented  her  case  which  was  a  similar  one 
and  met  a  similar  result.  Next  Rev.  E.  W.  Breckinridge  pre- 
sented himself  and  handed  him  his  card.  'What  is  your  name?' 
asked  Mr.  Lincoln.  'Breckinridge,'  replied  Brother  B.  'Rather  a 
suspicious  name,  but  I  am  loyal.'  "  (Breckinridge  was  the  name  of 
one  of  the  candidates  representing  the  disloyal  element  of  the 
South,  opposing  Lincoln  for  the  Presidency  in  the  campaign  of 
i860.)  "  'I  have  long  desired  to  see  you  and  take  you  by  the 
hand.  I  am  glad  to  see  you  bearing  your  labors  so  well.  You  have 
the  prayers  of  the  people,  and  I  pray  for  the  speedy  and  peaceful 
termination  of  the  war  on  the  principles  of  your  proclamation.' 
Meanwhile  I  shook  the  hand  of  the  President  and  asked  him  for 
his  autograph.  He  took  the  book  which  I  presented  and  cheerfully 
gave  his  name.  Brother  B.  presented  his  book  and  received  Mr. 
Lincoln's  signature.  We  then  bade  him  goodbye  and  took  our 
leave,  thankful  for  the  privilege  of  seeing  and  shaking  hands 
with  the  President. 

"As  we  passed  out  of  the  Presidential  Mansion  we  met  on  the 
veranda  the  President's  son,  some  nine  years  of  age."  (He  was 
really  eleven.)  "He  was  handling  some  boards  that  lay  there  for 
the  purpose  of  building  a  scaffold.  We  shook  hands  with  him  and 
Brother  B.  inquired  his  name.  He  replied,  'Tom.'"  (He  was 
the  one  called  "Tad.")  "We  went  from  there  to  the  Quarter- 
master General's  Office  and  found  Durbin.  We  repaired  to  the 
rooms  of  the  Commission  on  10th  Street,  and  spent  the  evening 
very  pleasantly  with  a  number  of  the  delegates." 

This  book,  in  which  is  the  autograph  of  Abraham  Lincoln, 
is  a  record  book  like  that  which  was  given  to  all  delegates,  as 
they  were  called,  serving  in  the  Christian  Commission.  On  the 
three  pages  preceding  that  on  which  Lincoln's  autograph  appears 
are  the  autographs  of  Grant  and  every  member  of  his  staff, 
obtained  by  my  father  at  the  headquarters  of  the  Army  in  the 

[12] 


Field.  On  the  back  of  Lincoln's  page  is  the  autograph  of 
Theodore  Roosevelt,  obtained  for  me  by  a  friend  a  few  months 
before  Roosevelt's  death. 

Under  celluloid,  inside  the  cover  of  this  book,  I  have  a 
light  green  silk  lapel  badge  of  the  Wide-Awake  Clubs,  worn 
in  the  first  campaign  for  the  election  of  Lincoln  in  i860.  It 
has  the  youngest-looking  portrait  of  Lincoln  that  I  ever  saw, 
with  a  fac-simile  of  his  signature.  I  found  this  in  the  same 
attic  where,  a  year  or  two  later,  I  found  my  father's  diary.  I 
never  have  seen  another.  Roosevelt  was  more  interested  in  this 
badge  than  in  anything  else  in  the  book.  I  believe  that  he  had 
never  seen  one  like  it. 

Years  ago  I  spoke  for  a  few  minutes  to  a  Sunday  School  at 
the  Methodist  Church  of  Geneva,  New  York.  I  had  said  a 
few  things  about  Lincoln's  temperance  principles.  An  official 
of  the  church  then  told  me  that  the  widow  of  the  man  who  sold 
Booth  the  glass  of  brandy  which  he  took  in  the  saloon  adjoining 
Ford's  Theatre,  just  before  the  assassination,  was  sitting  in  the 
audience.  The  story  in  brief  was  that  the  bartender  years  before 
had  become  a  Christian,  had  moved  to  Geneva,  where  he  had 
been  for  years  a  member  of  the  Methodist  Church,  and  had 
died  about  three  years  before. 

The  very  next  Sunday,  the  Presbyterian  pastor  at  Marathon, 
New  York,  told  me  of  an  interesting  character  whose  funeral 
he  had  conducted  at  his  former  charge.  This  man  was  in  the 
saloon  when  Booth  came  in,  and  he  saw  Booth  drink  the  brandy. 
He  asked  the  bartender  who  the  man  was.  "Don't  you  know? 
That  is  Booth  the  actor."  "No,  I  have  never  seen  him  before 
to  know  him,"  the  man  replied.  This  man  went  into  the  theatre 
to  witness  the  play,  and  after  a  little  saw  Booth  edging  along 
the  gallery  toward  Lincoln's  box.  Having  just  learned  that  he 
was  an  attache  of  the  theatre,  he  thought  nothing  of  it.  Soon 
the  awful  tragedy!  This  man  passing  out  through  the  vestibule 
was  met  by  those  coming  down  the  opposite  stairway  carrying 
Lincoln.  They  said  to  him:  "Here,  give  us  a  lift;  we  haven't 
quite  help  enough."  He  then  helped  carry  Lincoln's  prostrate 
form  over  to  the  room  across  the  street,  where  Lincoln  died  the 
next  morning.  These  two  interesting  experiences  came  to  me  on 
two  successive  Sundays. 

[13] 


I  am  sometimes  asked  concerning  the  personal  appearance 
of  Abraham  Lincoln.  When  in  repose  his  countenance  was  sad. 
His  face  was  rugged  and  seamed.  The  late  Rev.  Dr.  Ervin  S. 
Chapman,  an  acquaintance  of  Lincoln,  who,  when  in  his  eightieth 
year,  published  a  life  of  the  great  President,  suggests  in  his  book 
that  Lincoln's  reputation  for  ill  looks  is  largely  due  to  a  pro- 
truding lip.  He  prints  a  portrait  of  Lincoln  from  his  mouth  up, 
and  challenges  anyone  to  produce  a  nobler  countenance.  A  pro- 
minent woman  in  Washington  once  said:  "When  Lincoln's  face 
is  lighted  up  with  the  animation  of  public  speech,  he  is  the 
handsomest  man  I  ever  saw." 

In  his  young  manhood,  while  following  a  trail  in  the  wilder- 
ness of  Kentucky,  Lincoln  was  met  by  a  native,  who,  when  he 
was  near  enough,  took  the  rifle  from  his  shoulder — nearly 
everybody  carried  a  rifle  in  that  section,  in  those  days — and 
pointed  it  at  Lincoln.  "Hold  on  there,  stranger,"  cried  Lincoln; 
"what  do  you  think  you  are  doing?"  "I  took  a  vow  on  the  grave 
of  my  mother  that  if  I  ever  met  a  homelier  man  than  I,  Pd 
shoot  him!"  Lincoln  looked  him  over  a  second  or  two  and  then 
said:  "Well,  stranger,  if  I  am  any  uglier  looking  than  you,  I  think 
you'd  better  shoot  me." 


WE  ought  not  to  limit  our  consideration  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
to  my  personal  recollections  of  him.   His  character  and 
career  have  many  important  lessons  for  this  generation. 

Among  other  things,  his  career  teaches  the  importance  often 

OF  A  MOTHER'S   INFLUENCE. 

In  the  great  majority  of  cases,  character  is  fixed  in  the  earliest 
years. 

"A  pebble  in  the  streamlet  scant 

Has  turned  the  course  of  many  a  river; 

A  dew-drop  on  the  baby  plant 

Has  warped  the  giant  oak  forever." 

When  nine  years  of  age,  standing  by  the  bedside  of  his 
dying  mother,  the  boy  Lincoln  promised  her  that  he  never  would 
use    intoxicating    liquors.    He    kept    that    vow.    And    this   at   a 


[14] 


time  and  in  a  region  where  nearly  everyone  drank  liquor  at 
least  occasionally. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  a  prohibitionist  a  generation  ahead  of 
his  time.  The  oration  which  he  delivered  on  Washington's 
Birthday,  1842,  in  the  Presbyterian  Church  at  Springfield, 
Illinois,  I  regard  as  the  great  English  temperance  classic.  The 
exigencies  of  the  Civil  War  pushed  out  of  sight  Lincoln's 
attitude  on  the  liquor  question.  In  recent  years,  however,  this  has 
been  receiving  the  attention  which  it  deserves.  A  few  years  ago 
there  appeared  a  book  entitled  "Lincoln  and  Prohibition,"  by 
Charles  T.  White,  which  gives  valuable  information  regarding 
this  subject. 

During  the  war,  Lincoln  was  once  on  a  revenue  cutter  in 
Hampton  Roads  and  was  awfully  seasick.  There  was  a  good 
deal  of  him  to  be  seasick,  for  he  was  six  feet  four !  The  Captain, 
thinking  to  do  him  a  favor,  brought  him  a  glass  of  champagne, 
saying,  "I  think  this  will  help  you."  "No,  no!"  said  Lincoln; 
"I  have  seen  too  many  people  seasick  on  land  from  drinking 
that  stuff," — and  he  would  have  none  of  it. 

He  was  always  interested  in  meeting  anyone  taller  than  him- 
self. He  once  met  a  man  who  was  two  or  three  inches  taller. 
Looking  him  over  a  minute,  he  said:  "Will  you  please  tell  me 
how  you  ever  know  when  your  feet  are  cold? " 

The  total  abstinence  pledge  which  Lincoln  in  his  young 
manhood  wrote  out  for  himself,  and  which  he  induced  others 
to  sign,  was  adopted  by  the  Lincoln-Lee  Legion: 

"Whereas,  the  use  of  alcoholic  liquors  as  a  beverage  is 
productive  of  pauperism,  degradation  and  crime;  and  believing 
it  is  our  duty  to  discourage  that  which  produces  more  evil  than 
good,  we  therefore  pledge  ourselves  to  abstain  from  the  use  of 
intoxicating  liquors  as  a  beverage." 

To  this  pledge  have  been  obtained  the  signatures  of  over  six 
million  of  the  Sunday-school  children  of  the  Nation. 

Napoleon  when  asked,  "What  is  the  greatest  need  of  France?" 
instantly  replied,  "Mothers!"  "All  that  I  am,  or  ever  hope  to 
be,  I  owe  to  my  angel  mother,"  said  Lincoln.  It  is  more  than 
possible  that  had  it  not  been  for  that  godly  mother  we  never 
would  have  heard  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

[15] 


Another  lesson,  especially  important  to  the  youth  of  to-day, 
is  that  Lincoln  when  a  boy  improved  to  the  full  all  of 

HIS  ADVANTAGES. 

And  how  meagre  were  those  advantages!  His  home  was  a 
home  of  abject  poverty.  The  Lincoln  family  one  winter  in 
Indiana  lived  in  a  three-sided  shack,  the  front  all  open  to  the 
weather,  with  the  thermometer  at  times  down  to  zero.  As  a 
boy  Lincoln  never  had  so  much  as  a  sheet  of  paper  or  a  lead 
pencil,  a  slate  or  a  slate  pencil.  So  poor  was  the  family  that 
they  had  no  candles;  and  the  boy  Lincoln  used  to  lie  face 
down  before  a  large  open  fire  for  light,  and  with  a  dead  coal 
from  that  fire,  work  out  his  arithmetic  on  the  back  of  a  wooden 
shovel.  When  he  had  filled  it,  he  would  plane  it  off  and  begin 
again. 

At  first  the  boy  had  almost  no  books  except  the  Bible.  Later 
he  had  Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Progress,  Aesop's  Fables,  Robinson 
Crusoe,  Weems's  Life  of  Washington,  and  a  History  of  the 
United  States.  "Beware  the  man  of  one  book!"  This  does  not 
necessarily  mean  that  we  should  confine  our  reading  to  one 
volume.  The  sentiment  is,  that  he  who  masters  one  book  often 
has  more  mental  power  and  equipment  than  he  who  superficially 
reads  a  hundred  books.  Lincoln  mastered  those  books,  and  they 
were  to  him  "the  well  of  purest  English  undefiled."  This 
mastery  of  everything  that  he  studied,  which  characterized 
him  through  life,  resulted  in  the  fact  that  few  if  any  of  the 
English  race  have  been  so  masterful  in  logic,  so  forceful  and 
felicitous  in  the  use  of  the  English  tongue.  In  his  writings, 
speeches,  and  official  documents  eighty-five  per  cent  of  the 
words  are  monosyllables.  They  went  like  bullets  to  the  mark. 
Leaning  back  in  his  chair  during  an  interim  in  a  cabinet  meet- 
ing, Lincoln  repeated  page  after  page  of  Shakespeare.  Finally 
Secretary  of  State  Seward  said:  "Mr.  President,  we  do  not  under- 
stand this.  You  never  had  the  advantages  of  the  schools,  and 
here  you  are  quoting  Shakespeare  as  I  could  not  possibly  do;  and  I 
have  some  little  reputation  as  a  Shakespearian  scholar." 

Go  to  Oxford  University  where,  we  are  told,  the  purest 
English  is  written  and  spoken,  and  being  an  American,  you  may 
be  invited  to  enter  a  certain  corridor  to  see  a  copy  of  Lincoln's 

[16] 


letter  to  Mrs.  Bixby  of  Boston,  who,  the  President  had  been  told, 
laid  her  all — five  sons — upon  Freedom's  altar.  They  will  tell 
you  that  it  is  the  finest  letter  of  condolence  in  the  English 
language.  You  may  go  to  the  British  Museum,  where  the  books 
if  placed  on  one  shelf  would  reach  fifty  miles,  and  ask  for  the 
finest  short  speech  in  the  English  tongue,  and  immediately  they 
will  hand  you  Lincoln's  Gettysburg  Address. 

The  Battle  of  Gettysburg  was  the  Waterloo  of  the  Confederacy. 
Later  the  battlefield  was  to  be  dedicated  as  a  National  Cemetery 
for  our  heroic  dead.  Edward  Everett,  then  considered  America's 
greatest  orator,  was  engaged  to  give  the  oration.  Six  weeks  later 
the  President  was  asked  if  he  would  attend  and  make  "a  few 
remarks."  Edward  Everett  delivered  his  great  oration, — and  it 
was  a  great  oration,  comparable  to  the  great  orations  of  history. 
Lincoln  then  made  his  "few  remarks."  We  are  told  that  after 
Lincoln  had  finished  speaking  and  had  taken  his  seat,  Edward 
Everett  arose  and  went  to  him,  extending  his  hand  and  saying: 
"Mr.  President,  if  I  could  feel  that  I  had  as  clearly  presented  the 
issue  in  my  two  and  a  quarter  hours  as  you  have  in  your  two  and 
a  quarter  minutes,  I  should  be  a  happy  man."  I  doubt  if  there 
can  be  found  in  all  the  land  to-day  a  single  person  who  can  quote 
three  consecutive  sentences  from  Edward  Everett's  great  oration. 
But  we  are  emblazoning  on  bronze  tablets  Lincoln's  Gettysburg 
Address,  and  affixing  them  to  our  schoolhouse  walls;  and  there  are 
untold  thousands  of  the  school  children  of  to-day  who  can  repeat 
every  word  of  it.  Emerson,  Lowell,  and  Victor  Hugo  place  it 
among  the  three  masterpieces  of  all  literature.  Gladstone  said 
of  it:  "The  ideas  it  contains  are  loftier  than  any  ever  before 
uttered  in  the  annals  of  the  world."  And  I  well  remember  that 
an  English  review  at  the  time  characterized  it  as  the  "grandest 
speech  that  ever  fell  from  human  lips." 

Lincoln  when  a  boy  improved  to  the  full  his  opportunities. 

Lincoln's   career  again   teaches  us  that   moral   character   is 

AN  ESSENTIAL  ELEMENT  OF  REAL  GREATNESS. 

All  the  world's  real  heroes  were  God's  men.  Christian  or  non- 
Christian,  they  all  recognized  a  Supreme  Power  that  makes  for 
righteousness,  and  to  that  Power  they  gave  allegiance.  Near  the 
close  of  his  great  career,  Gladstone  said:  "I  have  been  brought 
into  contact  with  sixty  master  minds  of  earth,  and  all  but  five  of 

[17] 


them  were  lowly  followers  of  the  Nazarene."  Abraham  Lincoln's 
career  emphasizes,  as  do  few  others,  that  character  is  greatness. 

He  was  a  Christlike  man. 

(i)  He  was  Christlike  in  his  sympathy  and  tenderness  of 
heart.  You  doubtless  remember  those  martinets  among  the  army 
officers  who  complained  that  Lincoln  by  his  frequent  pardons 
was  ruining  military  discipline.  There  are  many  cases  such  as  the 
fellow  who,  on  a  hot,  dusty,  all-day  march,  carried,  in  addition 
to  his  own  heavy  load,  his  sick  comrade's  equipment.  By  lot  he 
had  to  serve  on  picket  duty  that  night.  Of  course  he  fell 
asleep  and  by  military  law  should  be  shot.  Lincoln  would  not 
have  it  so.  He  said,  "Those  boys  are  worth  more  to  the  Republic 
above  ground  than  under  it." 

One  evening  Joshua  Speed,  an  intimate  friend,  was  calling  at 
the  White  House.  After  a  time  he  took  out  his  watch  and 
said:  "Mr.  President,  I  must  be  going.  You  are  an  over-worked 
man  and  need  your  rest."  "Don't  go,  Joshua,  don't  go.  This  is 
Thursday  night.  I  never  sleep  any  Thursday  night.  Tomorrow 
is  execution  day  in  the  army.  I  never  sleep  Thursday  night. 
Stay  with  me,  Joshua,  stay  with  me."  Such  was  the  heart  of 
Lincoln. 

The  Confederate  General  Pickett,  of  Gettysburg  fame,  when 
a  young  man,  received  his  appointment  to  West  Point  at  the 
hands  of  Congressman  Abraham  Lincoln.  The  day  after  the 
Confederate  forces  evacuated  Richmond,  President  Lincoln  en- 
tered it.  Among  other  things  he  sought  out  the  home  of  General 
Pickett.  The  General  and  all  his  servants  had  fled.  Mrs.  Pickett 
answered  the  rap  at  the  door.  "Is  this  General  Pickett's  place?" 
"Yes,  Sir,"  she  replied;  "but  he  is  not  here."  "I  know  that, 
Ma'am;  but  I  just  wanted  to  see  the  place.  I'm  Abraham  Lin- 
coln." "The  President?"  she  gasped.  "No,  Ma'am;  no,  Ma'am; 
just  Abraham  Lincoln,  George's  old  friend." 

"I  am  George  Pickett's  wife,  and  this  is  his  baby."  After- 
ward, relating  the  incident,  Mrs.  Pickett  said:  "My  baby  pushed 
away  from  me  and  reached  out  his  hand  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  who 
took  him  in  his  arms.  As  he  did  so,  an  expression  of  rapt,  almost 
divine,  tenderness  and  love  lighted  up  the  sad  face.  It  was  a 
look  that  I  have  never  seen  on  any  other  face.  My  baby  opened 
his  mouth  wide  and  gave  his  father's  friend  a  dewy,  infantile 

[18] 


— 


kiss.  As  Mr.  Lincoln  gave  the  little  one  back  to  me,  shaking  his 
finger  at  him  playfully,  he  said,  'Tell  your  father,  the  rascal, 
that  I  forgive  him  for  the  sake  of  that  kiss  and  those  bright 
eyes."'  He  came  not  as  a  conquering  Caesar,  but  as  a  friend.  He 
visited  the  so-called  "rebel"  general,  not  to  upbraid  him  but  to 
assure  him  of  his  love.  History  has  no  parallel  to  that. 

When  Lincoln  was  a  little  boy  the  mother  said  to  Thomas,  the 
father,  "I  think  Abe  looks  more  like  me  than  he  does  like  you." 
"Well,  that  may  be,"  said  Thomas;  "but,  Nancy,  he  can't  sing 
like  you."  "Well,"  said  the  mother,  "maybe  he  will  make  others 
sing."  And  no  man  since  Calvary  has  made  so  many  broken  hearts 
sing  for  joy  as  has  Abraham  Lincoln. 

(2)  Again,  his  was  a  forgiving  spirit,  like  his  Master's.  When 
reviled,  he  reviled  not  again.  It  is  well-nigh  impossible  for  us 
of  to-day  to  realize  the  abuse,  the  malignity,  which  at  one  time 
was  heaped  upon  Lincoln  by  his  enemies.  Scarcely  any  man  in 
public  life  has  ever  suffered  so.  No  language  was  too  vile,  no 
epithets  too  abusive.  He  was  called  an  ape,  a  chimpanzee,  an 
orang-outang,  a  gorilla,  a  baboon. 

Lincoln  once  sent  Judge  Holt,  who  was  a  subordinate  of 
Stanton,  Secretary  of  War,  to  release  a  family  imprisoned  in 
Fort  Henry,  Baltimore.  Baltimore  had  probably  more  disloyal 
citizens  than  loyal.  This  family  had  been  guilty  of  carrying  on 
a  contraband  trade  with  some  of  their  friends  who  had  gone 
South.  This  was  not  murder,  but  it  was  contrary  to  military  law 
and  discipline.  Knowing  all  the  circumstances,  Lincoln  felt 
that  they  had  been  punished  enough.  Stanton  learned  of  Judge 
Holt's  action,  and  upon  his  return  to  Washington  strenuously 
called  him  to  account.  The  Judge  replied,  "Why,  Mr.  Stanton, 
you  do  not  suppose  that  I  went  down  there  upon  my  own 
initiative!"  "Did  Lincoln  tell  you  to  do  that?"  stormed  Stanton. 
"He  certainly  did  or  I  should  not  have  done  it,"  was  Judge 
Holt's  answer.  "Well,  all  I  have  to  say  is,  we've  got  to  get  rid 
of  that  baboon  at  the  White  House!"  Stanton  said  that  of  his 
great  Chief!  This  was  repeated  to  Lincoln  by  one  who  added, 
"Mr.  President,  I  would  not  endure  such  an  insult."  "Insult? 
insult?"  said  Lincoln;  "that  is  no  insult;  it  is  an  expression 
of  opinion;  and  what  troubles  me  most  about  it  is  that  Stanton 
said  it,  and  Stanton  is  usually  right." 

[19] 


But  I  cannot  leave  this  Stanton  story  here.  In  the  room  to  which 
Lincoln  was  carried,  across  the  street  from  Ford's  Theatre,  were 
gathered  the  Cabinet,  members  of  his  family,  and  a  few  pro- 
minent officials.  All  night  long  they  watched  the  flame  of  life 
flickering  lower  and  lower  and  lower.  As  the  morning  dawned 
there  was  a  period  of  silence — and  at  last  the  feeble  flame  went 
out.  Stanton  broke  the  silence:  "Now  he  belongs  to  the  ages." 
The  next  morning,  as  the  body  of  Lincoln  lay  in  the  casket,  the 
Cabinet  was  invited  in.  Stanton  was  again  the  spokesman:  "There 
lies  the  mightiest  man  that  ever  ruled  a  nation!"  He  was  a 
baboon  no  longer. 

We  had  been  so  long  without  war  that  we  had  few  experienced 
army  officers.  George  B.  McClellan  had  acquired  a  reputation 
at  West  Point  and  in  civil  life  as  a  superior  tactician,  organizer, 
and  executive.  Lincoln  appointed  him  Commander  of  the  Army. 
A  large  force  was  assembled  near  Washington.  But  McClellan 
did  not  move.  He  never  was  quite  ready.  He  asked  for  more  men, 
more  supplies.  Lincoln  did  everything  possible  to  meet  his  de- 
mands. Still  he  did  not  move.  The  nation  became  impatient. 
The  people  were  demanding  action,  and  the  papers  carried  head- 
lines, "On  to  Richmond!"  Lincoln,  always  patient  and  deliberate, 
was  forced  to  recognize  the  situation.  He  went  one  evening  to 
see  McClellan  at  his  headquarters.  The  General  was  out,  attend- 
ing the  wedding  of  one  of  his  officers.  Lincoln  patiently  sat 
the  long  evening  through.  McClellan  returned  very  late  and  went 
up  a  back  way  to  his  apartments.  An  orderly,  seeing  the  situation, 
rushed  up  and  told  him  that  the  President  had  been  there  a 
long  time,  waiting  to  see  him.  "You  tell  Lincoln  that  General 
McClellan  has  gone  to  bed!"  Does  it  seem  possible!  Lincoln 
meekly  went  back  to  the  White  House.  With  one  stroke  of  his 
pen  he  could  have  cut  off,  figuratively  speaking,  McClellan's 
head.  An  official,  talking  with  Lincoln  about  McClellan's 
behavior  said:  "I  wouldn't  endure  such  an  insult.  You  ought 
to  dismiss  him."  "O,  I  would  gladly  hold  McClellan's  horse 
for  him,  if  he  would  only  do  something, — if  he  would  only  do 
something!"  Finally  McClellan  had  to  be  removed. 

Lincoln's  heart,  as  big  as  the  world,  had  in  it  no  place  for  the 
memory  of  a  wrong.  In  the  closing  words  of  that  immortal  Second 

[20] 


— 


Inaugural, — "With  malice  toward  none,  with  charity  for  all," — 
he  expressed  the  mind  that  was  in  Christ. 

(3)  Like  Christ,  he  "bore  our  griefs  and  carried  our  sorrows." 
It  is  impossible  for  us  fully  to  appreciate  the  crushing  weight 
that  rested  upon  Lincoln's  heart,  as  disaster  after  disaster  befell 
the  Northern  forces  in  the  earlier  years  of  the  war.  It  nearly 
crushed  him  to  earth.  And  like  Christ,  he  trod  the  winepress 
alone.  There  was  none  to  help. 

Carpenter,  while  painting  the  famous  picture  of  the  "First 
Reading  of  the  Emancipation  Proclamation"  which  hangs  in 
the  Capitol,  was  for  six  months  a  guest  at  the  White  House.  He  and 
Lincoln  became  quite  intimate.  Lincoln  came  into  Carpenter's 
room  one  midnight,  and  with  his  hands  uplifted  exclaimed: 
"O  Carp,  Carp,  I  can't  stand  this  much  longer!  I  must  have 
relief!  How  gladly  would  I  exchange  this  wearisome  hospital  of 
pain  and  woe,  called  the  White  House,  for  the  place  of  some 
poor  boy  that  sleeps  tonight  beneath  the  sod  in  a  Southern  battle- 
field! I  can't  stand  this  much  longer.  I  must  have  relief!"  He 
bore  our  griefs;  he  carried  our  sorrows. 

Abraham  Lincoln  studied  and  reverenced  the  Bible. 

It  is  said  that  he  knew  the  Bible  better  than  did  the  average 
clergyman  of  his  day.  The  speeches,  the  writings,  the  messages 
and  public  documents  of  no  public  man  in  American  history 
are  so  redolent  of  Scripture  quotations  and  allusions  as  are  those 
of  Lincoln.  The  Bible  is  the  source,  the  standard,  of  the  highest 
morality.  Lincoln's  moral  character  was  founded  upon  the  Bible. 

He  believed  in  the  over-ruling  -providence  of  God,  and  was  a 
man  of  prayer. 

When  leaving  Springfield  for  Washington  to  be  inaugurated, 
in  his  farewell  speech  to  his  friends  and  neighbors,  delivered 
from  the  platform  of  the  train,  Lincoln  said: 

"I  now  leave,  not  knowing  when  or  whether  ever  I  may  re- 
turn, with  a  task  before  me  greater  than  that  which  rested  upon 
Washington.  Without  the  assistance  of  that  Divine  Being,  who 
ever  attended  him,  I  cannot  succeed.  With  that  assistance,  I  can- 
not fail.  Trusting  in   Him,  who  can  go  with  me,  and  remain 

[21] 


with  you,  and  be  everywhere  for  good,  let  us  confidently  hope 
that  all  will  yet  be  well.  To  His  care  commending  you,  as  I 
hope  in  your  prayers  you  will  commend  me,  I  bid  you  an  affec- 
tionate farewell." 

For  lack  of  time,  I  cannot  dwell  upon  the  many  irrefutable 
and  often  thrilling  proofs  that  Lincoln  was  a  man  of  prayer; 
such  as  his  asking  Bishop  Simpson  to  pray  for  him;  of  James 
Murdock's  overhearing  Lincoln  in  the  dead  hours  of  the  night 
pleading  mightily  with  the  God  of  Nations  for  help  in  the 
Nation's  extremity;  of  his  telling  General  Sickles,  who  was 
in  the  hospital  at  Washington,  after  having  lost  a  leg  at  Gettys- 
burg, how  he  had  pleaded  with  God,  before  the  battle  of 
Gettysburg,  and  of  his  having  received  the  assurance  that  the 
North  would  win.  When  Washington  was  threatened  by  Stone- 
wall Jackson  and  the  Cabinet  was  very  much  alarmed,  Lincoln 
said:  "The  thing  I  fear  about  Stonewall  Jackson  is  that  he  is  a 
praying  General ;  he  prays  before  he  goes  into  battle." 

Ladies  and  gentlemen,  I  present  to  you  Abraham  Lincoln 
as  the  nearest  perfect  moral  character  of  modern  times.  As 
we  go  from  them,  the  hills  sink;  the  mountains  rise.  In  moral 
sublimity  and  grandeur  Abraham  Lincoln  towers  like  Mont 
Blanc  and  the  Himalayas  above  the  lesser  peaks  of  human  great- 
ness. Had  he  been  a  time-serving  politician  instead  of  a  Christian 
statesman,  he  never  would  have  been  the  emancipator  of  a  race, 
the  savior  of  a  nation.  His  moral  character  was  an  essential 
element  of  his  greatness. 

Again,  Lincoln's  career  teaches  the  importance   of  high 

IDEALS  IN    EARLY   LIFE. 

You  will  recall  that,  when  a  young  man,  Lincoln  took  his 
first  trip  on  a  flatboat  down  the  Mississippi  River  to  New  Or- 
leans. He  there  saw  for  the  first  time  a  slave  auction.  A 
beautiful  mulatto  girl  on  the  auction  block  was  struck  off  to 
a  bestial-looking  villain,  who  went  up  and  took  her  by  the  arm 
and  led  her  off,  his  property.  The  soul  of  the  young  Lincoln 
was  hot  within  him.  Raising  his  hands  toward  heaven,  he  ex- 
exclaimed:  "By  the  Eternal,  if  I  ever  get  a  chance  to  hit  that 
thing,  I'll  hit  it  hard!"  And  when  in  after  years  God  gave  him 

[22] 


his  chance,  he  hit  it  so  hard  that  those  blows,  and  the  sound  of 
shackles  falling  from  the  dusky  limbs  of  four  million  bondmen, 
roll  echoing  forever  down  the  corridors  of  time.  He  hit  it  so 
hard  that  the  impact  set  ringing  the  bells  of  Paradise  and  struck 
the  keynote  of  an  eternal  Te  Deum  Laudamus  amid  the  choris- 
ters of  Heaven.  He  hit  it  so  hard  that  he  shattered  in  fragments 
forever  an  institution  which  boasted  that  it  was  impregnably 
fortified  in  the  foundation  rock  of  the  new  world's  life,  and  he 
changed  a  continent's  civilization.  He  hit  it  so  hard  that  he 
unsettled  thrones,  and  the  tyranny  of  despots  can  never  again  be 
as  before  Abraham  Lincoln  was.  In  that  hour  there  was  written 
a  new  magna  charta  of  human  rights. 

And  when  he  had  finished  his  task,  a  work  befitting  a  god, 
the  Eternal,  in  whose  name  and  for  whose  sake  he  had  done  it 
all,  sent  a  convoy  of  His  angels  to  bear  him  from  the  earth, 
which  was  no  longer  worthy  to  hold  him,  to  his  place  amid  the 
crowned  immortals.  This  man  it  was,  this  martyr  to  the  cause 
of  human  freedom,  this  Moses  of  a  nineteenth  century  slave 
race,  this  St.  George  who  slew  the  dragon  of  American  slavery, — 
he  it  was  who  said:  "The  slavery  of  the  rum  power  is  a  greater 
tyranny  to  depose  than  African  Slavery."  He  it  was  who,  with 
a  prophet's  vision,  like  Moses  on  the  top  of  Nebo,  catching  a 
glimpse  of  the  Promised  Land  which  he  should  never  be  per- 
mitted to  enter,  exclaimed:  "And  when  the  victory  shall  be 
complete — when  there  shall  be  neither  a  slave  nor  a  drunkard 
on  the  earth,  how  proud  the  title  of  that  land  which  may  truly 
claim  to  be  the  birthplace  and  the  cradle  of  both  those  revolu- 
tions, that  shall  have  ended  in  that  victory." 

We  have  waited  long  for  the  fulfillment  of  that  prophecy.  What 
Abraham  Lincoln,  considerably  over  three  quarters  of  a  century 
ago,  saw  as  the  gray  dawning  of  the  morning,  we  now  see 
approaching  the  effulgence  of  high  noon.  I  myself  heard  more 
than  half  a  century  ago,  at  the  Nation's  capital,  the  booming  of 
the  cannon  which  announced  to  the  city,  and  by  wire  to  the 
world,  that  the  American  Congress  had  that  minute  voted  to 
submit  the  Thirteenth  Amendment,  forever  prohibiting  African 
slavery.  And  I  thank  God  that  I  have  lived  to  see,  and  have 
had  a  little  part  in,  the  adoption  of  the  Eighteenth  Amendment, 
forever  prohibiting  a  far  greater  curse  (upon  the  testimony  of 

[23] 


the  Great  Emancipator  himself)  than  African  slavery:  the 
atrocious  liquor  traffic!  How  Lincoln's  great  soul  would  have 
rejoiced  could  he  have  lived  to  see  our  day!  All  this,  may  we 
not  believe,  was  due  to  those  high  ideals  of  right  and  duty 
which  he  formed  in  early  life  and  from  which  he  never  swerved 
in  all  his  great  career. 

I  hold  in  my  hand  a  Lincoln  cent.  Whenever  a  Methodist 
preacher  has  all  his  debts  paid  and  has  a  cent  left,  he  is  pretty 
well  off,  as  Methodist  preachers  go.  But,  seriously,  did  you 
ever  think  how  appropriate  it  is  that  the  head  of  the  Great 
Commoner  should  be  upon  our  commonest  coin? 

"Not  upon  the  eagle  golden 
Will   we  behold  his  face, 
Nor  yet  on  gleaming  silver 
The  honest  features  trace; 
But  to   the   lowly  copper, 
The  common  coin,  instead, 
Has  fallen  the  distinction 
Of  bearing  Lincoln's  head. 

"The  millionaire  will  seldom 
Those  noble   outlines   grasp, 
But  childhood's  chubby  fingers 
The  image  oft  will  clasp. 
The  poor  man  will  esteem  it, 
And  mothers  hold  it  dear, — 
The  plain  and  common  people 
He  loved  when  he  was  here." 

And  it  is  because  he  loved  them  so,  because  he  had  so  much 
of  the  Christ  spirit,  that  he  was  such  an  uncompromising  foe  of 
everything  hostile  to  the  welfare  of  the  common  people.  That 
is  why  he  broke  the  galling  yoke  from  the  neck  of  the  poor, 
despised,  common  black  man.  That  is  why  he  was  a  prohibitionist; 
for  nothing  in  human  history  has  been  so  inimical  to  the  common 
people  as  strong  drink.  That  is  why  he  was  Abraham  Lincoln! 

[24] 


He  used  to  visit  the  hospitals.  His  great,  sympathizing  heart 
impelled  him  to  seek  to  comfort  the  sick,  the  wounded  and 
often  dying  boys  of  the  army.  He  had  been  at  one  hospital 
nearly  all  day  with  a  company  of  friends.  Just  as  they  were 
entering  their  carriages  to  leave,  an  attendant  rushed  out  and 
said  to  one  of  the  party:  "There  is  a  Confederate  prisoner 
in  one  of  the  wards  that  the  President  did  not  visit,  and  he 
wants  to  see  the  President."  When  Lincoln  was  told,  he  said, 
"I'll  go  back."  As  he  approached  the  cot  and  extended  his  hand, 
the  young  fellow  exclaimed:  "I  knew  they  were  mistaken!  I 
knew  they  were  mistaken!"  He  had  heard  all  that  talk  about  the 
ape,  the  baboon,  the  gorilla;  but  one  glance  at  the  kindly  face 
dispelled  it  all,  and  he  said:  "I  knew  they  were  mistaken!" 

"What  can  I  do  for  you,  young  man?"  inquired  Lincoln. 
"O,  I  don't  know  anybody  up  here,  and  the  surgeon  tells  me 
I  can't  live;  and  I  wanted  to  see  you  before  I  die."  The  Presi- 
dent asked  him  about  his  home  in  the  Southland;  about  his  father 
and  his  mother,  his  brothers  and  his  sisters.  The  young  fellow's 
confidence  was  won,  and  he  told  about  his  family  and  his  home; 
about  his  keepsakes  and  what  he  wanted  done  with  them.  Lincoln 
listened  sympathetically  and  promised  to  see  that  a  letter  was 
written.  He  still  tarried,  trying  to  prepare  the  young  man  for 
"the  great  adventure."  Presently  he  said:  "Now,  my  boy,  I 
have  been  here  nearly  all  day.  I  am  a  very  busy  man  and  I 
ought  to  be  going;  but  is  there  anything  more  that  I  can  do  for 
you?"  "I  was  hoping  you  would  stay  and  see  me  through."  And 
the  great  tears  rolled  down  on  Lincoln's  coat-sleeve  as  he  con- 
tinued to  minister  to  the  dying  boy. 

If  I  had  the  ability  and  were  asked  to  put  on  canvas  one  scene 
which  above  all  others  would  come  somewhere  near  portraying 
the  character  of  this  great  man,  it  would  be  that  scene  in  the 
hospital,  where  the  President  of  one  of  the  greatest  nations 
of  earth  was  helping  to  prepare  for  death  a  prisoner  boy  from 
the  ranks  of  his  country's  foes.  His  moral  character  was  an 
essential  element  of  his  greatness. 

Abraham  Lincoln — good  in  his  greatness,  and  great  in  his 
goodness! 

[25] 


We  are  filling  the  world  with  material  memorials  to  his 
greatness,  but  he  needs  them  not.  Efface  every  tablet,  destroy 
every  effigy,  break  in  pieces  every  statue,  level  every  monument, 
raze  to  the  ground  his  mausoleum,  cast  to  the  winds  his  sacred 
dust;  and  it  would  not  diminish  one  iota,  the  profound  rever- 
ence and  affection  with  which  he  will  evermore  be  regarded  by 
all  mankind,  wherever  civilization  shall  make  known  the  name  of 
Lincoln. 


26 


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